


Travelers on the Long Road

by 0Rocky41_7



Series: I Guess This is Happening: Theodora Hawke [12]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/F, Gen, Minor Female Hawke/Merrill, Post-Dragon Age II, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Purple Hawke (Dragon Age), Rogue Hawke (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:23:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28963863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0Rocky41_7/pseuds/0Rocky41_7
Summary: As Hawke and Merrill travel back to Kirkwall, a stranger appears at their campfire.
Relationships: Female Hawke/Merrill (Dragon Age), Hawke/Merrill (Dragon Age)
Series: I Guess This is Happening: Theodora Hawke [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2111598
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	Travelers on the Long Road

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is one of those things I never would have written without being prompted, but I had SO much fun with it. It's a [kink meme prompt](https://dragonage-kink.dreamwidth.org/93509.html?thread=365886277), which was for ANY interaction between Solas and Hawke. Here you get bonus Merrill too!
> 
> I imagine this takes place not long before the Divine Conclave, so Solas has had some time to take in present-day Thedas, but he is still adjusting.
> 
> [And check out this awesome prize Paperbrain-kun drew of Hawke!](https://imakemywings.tumblr.com/post/641430300759654400/theodora-maria-hawke-check-out-this-amazing)

Hawke and Merrill had chosen to make camp near the road, for convenience’s sake. After almost ten years in Kirkwall, they felt ready and able to take on most trouble that might accost them during a nighttime camp, so there was no need to take the arduous precaution of hiking out of sight of the road before allowing Merrill to ignite the pile of sticks Hawke had collected. They had met up the Coastlands, but Hawke was determined to see Merrill all the way back to West Hill to catch the boat back to Kirkwall.

She was not, however, getting on the boat herself.

It wasn’t something Merrill pushed, because when she tried, she could see the shadows that bubbled up in Theodora’s chest, swelling up in her throat, and dancing like perverse ghosts in her eyes. _There was too much in Kirkwall_ , they said. _Too much history_. But Merrill could not abandon the elves there, not when there was progress for the alienage to be made—not when she could step into leadership as Marethari had always meant her to do.

“Today, we have some more delicious and only slightly-soggy biscuits,” Hawke announced, pulling food from her pack. “And the berries we found earlier. And, uh…these leaves. Which are…what are these, Merrill?”

“It’s dragonthorn, it’s not for eating,” Merrill said, glancing up from warming her hands over the fire. Hawke didn’t bother investigating when Merrill had found time and opportunity to slip the herb into her pack without her notice.

“Right. And we have the bones from that game hen we bought the other day, which we can boil with the, uh, parsley.”

“That’s lovely.” Travel with Merrill was much improved by her upbeat attitude, even with the most pitiful accommodations or Hawke’s worst failures to produce food.

While the women nursed their weak soup and rested their feet from the day’s walk, the black shape of another traveler came along the road. The shuffle of feet paused some yards from their fire, and Hawke called out:

“If you’re going to rob us, can you make it quick? We’ve had a long day.”

Merril’s hand drifted towards the chain on her belt, the form in which she disguised her staff.

“I was not thinking to rob you.” The figure spoke in a soft, lilting voice, with an undercurrent of an accent Hawke could not place, and moved closer.

“Well that’s a relief,” Hawke said, but Merrill could see her relaxed posture belied the tension in her muscle, ready to reach for her knives at the first sign of trouble. It was a reflex well-trained from her years in Kirkwall, and her time on the road since. Hawke was always coiled like a spring, and Merrill despaired of putting her at ease.

“It is,” Merrill agreed. “We shouldn’t like to be robbed. It would spoil the rest of the night, really.” She cocked her head at the traveler, the light of the fire making it difficult even for her to see it clearly. “Perhaps you’d like to sit down a bit? It’s been a while since the last village.”

As the traveler moved closer, he made no noise, but drifted into the light of their fire, shuddering with a slight wrinkle of his nose as he crossed into the light.

“A bold offer to make of a stranger.” He was on the taller side, slender, but broad of shoulder, with a bare face and a cowl wrapped around his head.

“Bold offers to strangers are how I make my best friends,” Hawke said, gesturing for him to sit. “Just ask her.” The newcomer hesitated a moment more as Merrill nodded to confirm that yes, taking in random strangers was how Hawke expanded her social circle, then took a seat at their fire, cross-legged and opposite the other two.

“I thank you, then. It is not often one meets such welcome on the road.” He held his hands out to the fire.

“You got lucky, what with our charming company,” Hawke said, flashing a crooked smirk at Merrill. The stranger looked between them with a wary, searching look; his eyes traced Merrill’s vallaslin.

He said something to her that Hawke couldn’t understand, but even Merrill tipped her head in confusion.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that middle thing.”

“I said: I have not often seen one such as yourself traveling with a human.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Merrill acknowledged. For a moment, it was just the crackle of the fire, and Hawke watched the two elves study each other—at least, she assumed the stranger was an elf, and that it was Elvish he had just spoken to Merrill. “Are you from around here?”

“No.”

“What a coincidence,” Hawke said, misliking the tension in the air. “Neither are we.” She took out another biscuit and offered it to the strange elf. His iron gaze moved off Merrill, over to her, and then he took it with a quiet _“Ma serannas.”_

“Which alienage, then?” Merrill asked. The stranger’s eyebrows furrowed a moment, then smoothed, as if recalling something he had forgotten.

“No alienage. I am not from the city.”

“But you have no vallaslin,” Merrill said.

“No.” There was an undeniable look of distaste about him then, a curl of the lip, a wrinkle of the nose, as if Merrill had implied something uncouth. “I am not Dalish, either.” In the low light of the fire, Hawke could see the puzzled knit of Merrill’s black brow, a feeling she shared. She had never encountered an elf who was neither Dalish nor from an alienage, apart from Orana and Fenris, who were Tevene, and therefore not representative. 

“You shouldn’t travel alone out here,” Merrill advised him. “It’s dangerous. Fen’Harel will catch your trail.”

“Fen’Harel?” That, more than anything else yet said, seemed to pique the elf’s interest. “What do you mean by that?”

“She means one lone elf on the road is likely to end up dead in a ditch,” Hawke said bluntly. “Not everyone around is as entertaining and bleeding-heart generous as we are.”

“I did not realize they were synonymous.”

“Far be it from me to talk about elf stories,” Hawke said. “But seems like everything goes to shit whenever Fen’Harel turns up.” The elf regarded her a moment, then his eyes drifted to Merrill, before refocusing on the fire.

“I have walked alone for some time. I am not concerned with what roving bandits might harry me here.”

“Now that’s an attitude I like,” Hawke said. “I’m Hawke, and this is Merrill.” Merrill gave a little wave.

“You may call me Solas,” he responded.

“That’s an interesting name,” Merrill said. “Did your parents call you that?”

“No.” He offered no further explanation, and Merrill did not give one to Hawke. Her cool green eyes were focused on the newcomer again, with an appraising look Hawke had rarely seen her apply to another person.

Feeling almost as if she were party to a conversation to which she had not been invited, Hawke began scraping the bottom of their pot for the remains of the soup, which she ladled into her bowl, and then passed to Solas.

“I would not take from your fire,” he said, shaking his head.

“You’d do us a favor,” Hawke said with a shrug. “We’re moving on first thing in the morning, and we’re not so far from our destination now. And I did forget to bring my portable larder for keeping leftovers.” The lone elf looked her over in silence, then took the bowl with another low murmur of thanks.

“You don’t have a portable larder,” Merrill said to Hawke.

“No, but it sure would be handy, wouldn’t it?” She almost smiled, and reached a hand out to give Merrill’s hair an affectionate ruffle. The stranger’s eyes were on her the moment she went to touch Merrill, until she withdrew her hand, and it gave Hawke a most uneasy sense of being _observed_. It was on the tip of her tongue to snap at him, but she tamed it—a rare occurrence, which no one ever seemed to adequately appreciate.

A fat drop of water landed on one of the stones around the fire, and all three looked up.

“Oh, blast it.” Hawke quickly glanced around for what needed to be put away immediately, but Solas waved his hand and when the rain began to fall, it did not touch their camp.

“You’re an apostate,” Merrill exclaimed. She’d never met another elven apostate but among the Dalish (unless she were counting Feynriel, whom she didn’t, because he had gone with the Dalish in the end).

“And you’re a blood mage,” he replied at once, to which Merrill stiffened slightly, lips parting to make a denial. “I know the smell of a blood mage,” the stranger said, and Hawke could see Merrill curl her hands up, to hide the cuts on her palms. Merrill wasn’t sure if she saw Hawke from the corner of her eyes, or simply if she knew her partner so well she could guess that Hawke was starting to move her hands towards her blades again.

The traveler’s eyes flicked over to Hawke, then back to Merrill.

“It’s no business of mine,” he said, and the casually dismissive note of his voice bolstered his words. “Blood magic is a tool, like any other. It just happens to be one often and easily misused.” Hawke’s brow contracted (how did she keep finding all these blood magic-happy elves?), but she stopped reaching for her knives. Rather than follow that thread of conversation, she looked up at the invisible dome keeping them dry.

“That’s a neat trick,” she said. “Don’t you have to focus to keep it up, though?” The stranger shrugged.

“It takes minimal effort,” he said. “And I would rather not be wet.” Merrill was looking at her, but Hawke was more interested in the traveler for the moment. He slurped down the rest of the soup and passed the bowl back to Hawke.

“You’re welcome to camp with us for the night,” she said, feeling the invitation was due. “Merrill’s put some wards up, so things should be quiet here.” Since they were tacitly agreed not to turn each other into the templars, she saw no harm in letting him know the camp was magically protected.

“I am grateful for the offer,” he said. “But I do not plan to rest tonight.”

“Road’s pretty dangerous this time of night,” Hawke emphasized again. If the elf was suicidal, that was his own business, but she couldn’t imagine many who were keen to be alone, on foot, at night, out of sight of any settlements of any kind. It was a robbery-homicide waiting to happen.

“I have been still a great deal recently. I find myself…restless. I would prefer to keep moving.” Hawke nodded in understanding. There was an itchiness in her own feet, a discomfort with resting too long in a place, and she couldn’t condemn this desire. Still, she had to make a last offer.

“One night might not put you out too bad,” she said. “Merrill and I are headed for West Hill. You’d be free to travel with us, if you like.” But Solas was already shaking his head.

“I am southbound,” he said. “But I wish you safe travels.” Merrill shifted closer to Hawke, pulling at the hem of the shawl she had donned when they sat to camp.

“Well, we’ll be a bit dryer for your company,” Hawke said, looking again at the rain neatly avoiding their small hearth.

“What takes you south?” Merrill asked softly. Hawke could feel Merrill’s hand searching her own out on the leafy ground, and she slid her fingers into Merrill’s without looking away from the lone traveler.

“There are things of mine I have misplaced,” Solas answered. “It is time that I reclaimed them.” Merrill’s grip tightened, but Hawke did not turn her head.

“Good luck with that,” Hawke said. “Nobody who gets ahold of your stuff is ever quick to give it back.” Just as he had been unconcerned with the potential dangers of the road, Solas seemed blasé about this possibility as well.

“What things?” Hawke didn’t think Merrill would say anything else, but she had gathered herself for another question.

“You ask many questions, _da’len_.” Merrill’s hand squished Hawke’s fingers, and she asked nothing else.

“I didn’t mean to offend,” she said, lowering her eyes. “ _Ir abelas_."

“Safe travels, then,” Hawke said. “We’ll be here a while longer.” The light rain had begun to let up, and Solas, seeming to sense it was time to bow out, rose to his feet.

“Thank you for the respite,” he said. “ _Dareth shiral_.” A shudder went through him as he passed out of the light of their fire, but he shook it off. As he moved away from their camp, his spell wore away, and the dregs of the mist pattered against the low fire. Merrill released Hawke’s hand, and murmured something to herself in Elvish, of which the only word Hawke caught was _Mythal_.

“Hawke,” she said in a strange voice when the lone elf had vanished into the black of the road. “I think we might’ve just given the Dread Wolf a biscuit and let him sit at our campfire.”

“Ah, shit.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Yeah, Solas did have a moment of discomfort passing through Merrill's wards (hence the shivering), but they were not strong enough to keep him at bay (in her defense, she didn't expect to have to try to keep He Who Hunts Alone away from her little campfire).
> 
> 2) Merrill could not understand Solas' Elvish because of his accent
> 
> [On tumblr](https://imakemywings.tumblr.com/post/641226239748734976/travelers-on-the-long-road) | [On Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/2015142)
> 
> If you, a writer, are interested, I'm looking to see other people's interpretations of this prompt! If you want to write your own Solas & Hawke interaction I'd love to read it!


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